"In sleep we receive confirmation-I cannot find
another, more fitting word. We receive confirmation that we must go on
living."

Andrey Sinyavsky

A Voice from the Chorus

"O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,

That broodest O’er the troubled sea of the mind

Till it is hushed and smooth! O unconfined

Restraint, imprisoned liberty, great key

To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy,

Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves,

Echoing grottoes, full of tumbling waves

And moonlight; aye, to all the mazy world

Of silvery enchantments."

Endymion

"Very naturally some who have been wise enough to arrive at correct
notions of the truth, have described sleep as a thing to teach us to meditate
upon death, and a shadow and outline of the resurrection which is hereafter to
follow, for it bears in itself visible images of both conditions. For it removes
the same man from his state of perfection and brings him back to it."

Philo of Alexandria

"What are we? Just little animals that need to fall unconscious every
twenty-four hours in order to even keep living."

Jane Shapiro

"What do the nuclear accident
at Chernobyl, the near meltdown at Three mile Island, the environmentally
disastrous oil spill by the Exxon Valdez, and the loss of the space shuttle
Challenger all have in common:? They were all caused by people who were
making mistakes because they had too little sleep."

Stanley Coren

Sleep Thieves

"Human beings seem to be
fighting the evolutionary pressure to sleep. Despite the fact that sleep plays a
vital part in our health and our efficiency, we seem out to abolish sleep. The
first step in this process was the invention of the electric light bulb, which
eliminated our main excuse for stopping our work at the end of the day, namely,
that it was too dark to function. Next came the continuous conveyor belt, which
encouraged factories to operate 24 hours a day. Now the continuous access to
information provided by the Internet and other computer communications links
keeps us from our beds at all hours of the night. The work ethic we have adopted
today says that we should do away with sleep, or at least eliminate as much
sleep time as possible. The movers and shakers of the world don’t waste their
time sleeping. Yet too little sleep can kill us out right or can cause a gradual
deterioration in our health. Too little sleep can make us clumsy, stupid, and
accident prone. Too little sleep can destroy our psychological motivation and
put us into a deep depression."

Stanley Coren

Sleep Thieves

"There are sleepy people
driving trucks, cars, planes, and trains. There may be a sleepy doctor trying to
decide what emergency treatment one of your loved ones must have. There may be a
sleepy investment manager groggily making a decision that will effect your life
savings. There may even be a sleepy person in the White House deciding the fate
of a nation. Each year sleep-related errors and accidents cost the United States
over $56 billion, cause nearly 25,000 deaths and result in over 2.5 million
disabling injuries. Running up a sleep debt can be very expensive indeed…."

Stanley Coren

**************************************************

Book: "The Insomnia Kit: Everything You Need for a Good Night’s
Sleep." By Chris Idzikowski

Book: "How To get a good Night's Sleep: More than 100 Ways You can
Improve Your Sleep" by Richard Graber w/ P. Gouin

Book: "The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine explores the
Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night's Sleep." by
W.C. Dement & C. Vaughan